The Balanced Budget Amendment Rears Its Farcical Head Again

After the unsatisfying conclusion of the fiscal cliff saga, House GOP leaders resolved to reestablish regular order in the consideration of fiscal policy. No more secret negotiations with the White House. No more eleventh-hour crisis-averting votes. This was the impetus behind the bill to force the Senate to pass a budget for the first time in years, possibly paving the way for the first joint budget resolution since 2009.

A return to normalcy: what a splendid idea!

Which is why I’m scratching my head at the news that Republicans plan to make a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution the centerpiece of their fiscal agenda. The proposal would cap federal spending at 18 percent of GDP as well as require supermajorities for tax hikes and debt ceiling increases.

AEI’s James Pethokoukis deconstructs the practicality of the spending cap:

[L]et’s quickly examine whether capping federal spending at 18% of GDP is realistic. I am not sure it is. If the bill excludes interest spending? Maybe. If so, then the BBA would be capping spending at roughly the historical average of around 20% to 21% of GDP. But even doing that for the long term will be tough (especially without slashing defense spending to Europe’s minimalist levels). Recall that the Bowles-Simpson plan has a long-term spending target of 21%.

Just as problematic is the institutional folly that the BBA represents. Instead of reasserting democratic control over fiscal policy, as had been the plan until five minutes ago, a BBA regime would take us in the opposite direction — toward newly empowered judges. The literature on how a BBA would invite judicial interference into fiscal policy is vast — for a taste, see Ed Meese, Walter Dellinger, and Peter H. Schuck — and, to my lights, dispositive. But that’s not all. The executive branch, too, would potentially gain new authority over spending — which the Goldwater Institute, strangely, sees as a feature rather than a bug.

Then there’s the question of “optics.” Come the State of the Union Address, President Obama plans to grasp the mantle of restoring middle-class prosperity. Republicans are set to counter with the dry language of fiscal rectitude, behind which lurk accounting gimmicks and berobed men armed with calculators.

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7 Responses to The Balanced Budget Amendment Rears Its Farcical Head Again

The Republican Party has, since at least 1994, been the party of policy gimmickry. One might even argue 1981 – the Laffer Curve is about the most insane gimmick made into policy since Hoover’s chicken in every pot. In cynicism – this is the party of unfunded tax cuts, wars and social programs – it is absolutely breath-taking; in absolute economic idiocy – 18% based on what? the current historical accident? a historical mean? a Golden Age of Expenditure? – is has few equals. And, of course, every voter living in a BBA state – paralysis, mismanagement, accounting tricks, off-budget expenditure that makes the Caymans look positively transparent, pro-cyclical cuts – will know exactly how well BBAs work.

This is not the work of people who actually care about policy; it is not the work of people who actually know about politics. It is the work of madmen working off tired speaking points.

Basically, it appears as though Congress is working as hard as it can to completely gut Article 1 of the Constitution in favor of the continued empowerment of the Executive and Judicial branches.

Maybe after the BBA, we could then simply abolish Congress, which would help to keep spending under the 18% cap. Of course, this would become necessary anyway, as once you shift the revenue and spending authority completely to the other two branches of government, Congress would become nothing more than an old boys debating club.

It is truly laughable to worry about a Balanced Budget Amendment subjecting the country to rule by a judiciary taking its knife to a budget Congress is too irresponsible to balance.

Were the Courts merely to enforce the Constitution as it is written there would be no reason to consider the necessity to impose the strictures of 18% of GDP and a balanced budget. There is no authority in the Constitution for Congress to have created Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and any number of other entitlement programs which, with military outlays and interest on the national debt, claim the lion’s share of the Federal Budget. Require Congress to spin off these programs as it did the (actually Constitutionally mandated) Postal Service, and give up the ability to vote in popular tax-funded subsidies, and our Senators and Representatives can balance the rest of its budget and be home for the Fourth of July.

Maybe someone needs to tell them that as much as we love the Constitution, it is in fact a piece of paper and writing something in it, won’t actually make it so. (Ask Jose Padilla or Anwar Al-Awlaki.) If they want a balanced budget, adopt PayGo rules in the House and pass a budget now. They don’t need to wait for an amendment first. The rules against tax hikes give away the game: it’s not a BBA, it’s a No Tax Hikes Amendment.